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Rand Paul and President Donald Trump are looking far more aligned lately — almost like friends.
The Kentucky Republican senator spent much of Trump’s second term at odds with the president on major issues, from last year’s tax cuts to Trump’s sweeping tariffs to the war in Iran, even opposing Markwayne Mullin’s confirmation as Homeland Security secretary. That distance got Paul labeled a “sick wacko” by the loyalty-conscious Trump, who initially excluded him from last year’s White House picnic.
But in recent weeks, Paul spearheaded a $70 billion immigration enforcement funding bill, drawing praise from Trump and an invitation to the White House signing ceremony. He’s giving the president backup on voter ID and ending birthright citizenship.
Paul is also providing an encouraging counterweight to more hawkish colleagues who warn Trump not to negotiate with Iran. And his picnic invitation caused no kerfuffle this year. The libertarian-minded senator’s pinned X post is praise from the president: “He knows what’s important.”
Republicans on Capitol Hill are taking notice of the mutual thaw. It’s not lost on them that Paul’s closest ally in Congress, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., was just taken out by Trump in a primary. Senate Republicans see Paul as more keenly aware of his standing inside the party than Massie, and he is acting accordingly.
Paul said it’s been natural to support Trump in recent weeks: “I just keep supporting the things I’ve always supported. I’m always for peace versus war. On the border, I think you can’t have open borders,” he said in an interview.
“I just look at things one issue at a time, and I try to be consistently a defender of the Constitution,” he added. “I don’t think I’ll change from that.”
Paul also told Semafor he still may run for president, but wants to see how the midterms shake out first: “We’re going to look at that after the election.” He is up for reelection in 2028.
His team-player role during the occasionally rocky debate over the party-line immigration spending bill clearly helped smooth things over with Trump. The president recently trashed Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, who opposed the bill, then said that “Rand Paul’s come a long way … I like Rand Paul.”
“He really tries to get along with people, the president does. I think the way Rand conducted himself on the floor [during the immigration bill], he helped the team out, and I think the president appreciated it,” said Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., who attended the signing ceremony with Paul.
The relationship may also be transactional. Paul is a powerful committee chair and could find himself leading either the Homeland Security Committee or the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee next Congress due to the Trump-fueled ouster of Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La.
“He’s a US senator. When the senator plays nice, the president plays nice. Not complicated,” said a person close to Trump.
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Paul’s always been an outlier in the Senate GOP, with small-government views on war, criminal justice, and government surveillance as well as a strong bias toward spending cuts.
He didn’t always support Trump during his first term but they nonetheless enjoyed a good relationship, particularly during both presidential impeachment trials. Paul even helped devise the GOP strategy for dismissing Trump’s second trial: arguing that, because Trump was no longer in office, he couldn’t be convicted.
That helped Trump avoid more defections by giving Republicans who were boiling mad at Trump — like then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — a credible enough argument to acquit.
But Paul was slow to endorse Trump’s run in 2024, only fully coming on board after the election. He then battled with Vice President JD Vance last year over US airstrikes off the coast of Venezuela and openly campaigned for Massie this year. It was the type of behavior that’s made plenty of Republicans into long-term Trump targets.
Massie told Semafor he didn’t want to comment on Paul’s dynamic with Trump due to potential “danger of damaging any of those relations.”
But having won three statewide races already, Paul is seen by Republican aides as far more savvy — perhaps even far more secure.
Massie concluded as such: “He’s in a lot better of a spot than I am.”
Burgess’s view
Paul will have big decisions to make in 2028. He’s always been as much of a national figure as a Kentucky one, so he has advantages that Massie did not.
It’s clear to me, though, that Paul would like to avoid an antagonistic dynamic with Trump that could hang over him for two years. He’s making moves to position himself shrewdly. Massie barely tried to do the same.
I believe there’s a chance Paul runs for president, testing his theory that Americans are war-weary and tired of tariffs. Maybe he’ll do both: Paul ran for reelection in 2016 while also running for president, a relatively rare choice that showed his standing in Kentucky remained strong (even though his national campaign struggled).
Room for Disagreement
The biggest tripwire for Paul and Trump is the military.
It’s very hard to imagine Paul cheering Trump if ground troops are ultimately deployed in Iran — or anywhere else. But as long as Trump is pursuing negotiations first, Paul seems likely to be with him.
Notable
- Massie is also signaling he might join the 2028 presidential field, as The New York Times reported.
Shelby Talcott and Nicholas Wu contributed.